Tagdb

Tagdb is a simple tag-based command-line database tool for storing text records. Every record is associated with one or more tags which can be used to find the records. Tagdb is useful for saving and finding personal notes quickly.

Examples

A new record is created with -c option and with a list of tags that will be associated with the record. Normally the default text editor is launched for editing the record contents but the standard input stream can be used as well.

tagdb -c address email John_Smith

Tagdb's default operation prints database records that match the given tags. For example, the following command prints all records which have tags containing string John and email.

tagdb John email

Records and their tags can be edited with -e option. The default text editor is launched and all matching records can be edited at once.

tagdb -e John_Smith email

Usage

Usage: tagdb [options] [--] TAG ...

  The default operation prints all database records that match the given
  TAG(s).

General options

  -q    Quiet output.
  -v    Verbose output.

  --utc
        Print timestamps in UTC time instead of local time zone. This is
        relevant only with verbose (-v) output.

  --db=FILE
        Use FILE as the database file instead of the default. The
        program will try to create all the necessary directories for
        FILE. The default database location is defined by variable
        $XDG_DATA_HOME (default: "~/.local/share").

  --format=MODE
        Set output format to MODE which can be "text", "text-color"
        or "org-mode" (Emacs). You can add suffix "/default" to MODE
        in which case the specified mode will be saved as the default
        output mode.

Command options

  -s TAG ...
        Short output. This is like the default operation but only prints
        the first line of records' content. The first line could be used
        as record's title.

  -n TAG ...
        Count and print how many records match the given TAG(s).

  -c TAG ...
        Create a new database record associated with the given tags. If
        there seems to be data coming from the standard input it will be
        saved as the record's content. Otherwise the default text editor
        is launched for editing the record. Empty lines at the beginning
        and end are ignored.

  -e TAG ...
        Find all records that match the given tags and launch the
        default text editor for editing the records' contents and tags.
        Empty lines at the beginning and end of the record content are
        ignored. If a record has empty content the record will be
        deleted from the database.

  -l [STRING]
        List tags that match the given string. If no string is given
        list all tags.

  -r OLD NEW
        Reassociate records. All database records associated with the
        old tag will be associated with the new tag. The old tag is then
        removed.

  -h    Print this help text.

  --version
        Print program's version and copyright information.

Compile and Install

The build process is quite straightforward in GNU/Linux distributions. Tagdb depends on SBCL (a Common Lisp implementation) and SQLite database back-end. For example, in Debian GNU/Linux or similar distributions they are in packages sbcl and libsqlite3-dev. Tagdb also needs a couple of Common Lisp libraries but the build process downloads and installs them automatically (with Quicklisp).

Here's the build and install process:

$ sudo apt install build-essential git sbcl libsqlite3-dev
$ git clone https://github.com/tlikonen/tagdb
$ cd tagdb
$ make
$ sudo make install

By default program's files are installed under /usr/local directories. You can move the location with makefile variable prefix or separately executable file directory with bindir or library directory with libdir. Variable sbcl defines the path for SBCL. Variables are stored in config.mk file.

When the program is installed start with tagdb -h command.

Copyright and License

Copyright (C) 2014-2022 Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi>

OpenPGP key: 6965F03973F0D4CA22B9410F0F2CAE0E07608462

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The license text: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

The source code repository: https://github.com/tlikonen/tagdb